Facility Management Data in Disaster Management

Nowadays large real estates and infrastructural installations are managed using Computer Aided Facilities Management-systems (CAFM-systems). These systems are based on the graphical and alphanumerical base data of the building, as well as real-time data from master control systems and security installations. Even though a substantial number of rules and regulations exist concerning how the information is to be gathered and administered, there are still no standardised international norms in that area. Further, there are no provider-specific data and database structures on how to deal with the large amount of data, since the market is still far from consolidation and no single system has a market-dominating position. This is not a downfall in the daily routine of a facility manager, since most systems integrate all processes of the facilities management, but the incoherent data can cause problems when exchanging them with other applications or during benchmarking. Severe problems arise with the lack of standards in extraordinary situations when numerous im-portant decisions with major consequences have to be taken within a short period of time. In cases of fires, floods or terrorist attacks the base data of the buildings need to be readily available in an adequate format. Further these data should be constantly updated and integrated with real-time data from the Disaster Management System (DMS). The main challenges in this situation are locating and tracking rescue teams, the local information management and the communication between the on-site staff and the command centre. The Institute for Building Informatics at TU Graz in coopera-tion with the security industry is currently researching and developing a CAFM-based DMS (CADMS). In the following the individual aspects and technical problems are outlined and first re-sults are presented.